


Affliction

by frith_in_thorns



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Floof, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, hc_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 06:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1808533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frith_in_thorns/pseuds/frith_in_thorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cats stop caring about dignity when they're sick. So do Cait Sidhe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Affliction

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Cuddling" square on my [hc_bingo card](http://frith-in-thorns.livejournal.com/129023.html).
> 
> I am not entirely sure how compatible with canon this fic is, but I badly wanted to write h/c floof for this series and it outweighed my pedantry. Also I was encouraged by people at [aftertheendtimes](http://aftertheendtimes.dreamwidth.org/).

"Wow," Toby said. "You look like crap."

"I always appreciate your way with words," Tybalt said, from the doorway. He must have left the Shadow Roads in the front hall, as Toby hadn't heard him enter the house. "However, would you mind saying them a little more quietly?"

It was rare for Tybalt to look less than fastidiously neat, and usually those occasions signalled some kind of mortal peril. Toby was pretty sure, though, that he wasn't in that sort of danger today, despite the dishevelled shirt half-tucked into his jeans and the untidy hair. If he was he would probably have announced it immediately, rather than sidling into the room as if hoping to go unnoticed. She turned off the TV and took her feet off the coffee table. "What's up with you? Are you sick?"

Tybalt glared at her, which would have been more effective if he wasn't also pale and squinting against the light. As both those things were true it just made him look worse. "You needn't sound so flippant," he said. "I could be dying." He sniffled slightly to make his point.

Toby raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're not. Purebloods don't die from colds. Is it the one that's been going around Shadowed Hills?" 

"I do not have a _cold_ ," Tybalt muttered, sounding mortally insulted to be reduced to such an everyday diagnosis.

Toby finally stood up to press her hand against his forehead. He tried to doge out of the way, and then to push her hands off him, but his reflexes didn't look like they were working as well as usual and she won. "Really? I guess you're going to tell me next that you don't have a headache. And you're not running a fever."

She slipped her other arm around him, and he leaned into her. And onto her, his head tipping down to rest on her shoulder. She could feel the heat of him against her neck.

After a minute of that, she shook him slightly. "Hey. Don't fall asleep on me."

"I'm not," he mumbled into her sweater. "However, I might like to sit down…"

"Good idea," Toby said, hastily. She manoeuvred them backwards, trying not to trip over a tangle of video game controllers on the floor, and pulled him down with her onto the couch. Tybalt groaned, and let himself flop against her. "You're not coughing. Do you have the flu?"

Tybalt groaned again, miserably. "Maybe."

"You took the Shadow Roads like this?" That didn't seem like a particularly clever idea, but what did _she_ know.

Tybalt snuggled himself into a more comfortable position. "My Court was very loud."

"So you're sick and hiding from your Court. Got it." Toby felt a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

"It's bad manners to mock one's gravely ill beloved," Tybalt grumbled, with his eyes shut.

Toby elbowed him gently, achieved by flexing the arm he was lying on. "You're not gravely ill." It wasn't terribly rare for even Purebloods of certain Fae races to be struck down by particularly virulent germs every now and then. The effects only lasted for a day or two at the most, but during that time were as discomforting to the Fae sufferer as they were to a mortal.

"I _am_."

"If you really think that then you should have gone to Shadowed Hills and talked to Jin. I don't heal people. Usually I make them worse."

"But you're comfortable," Tybalt said, in a way that suggested this was a perfectly reasonable course of logic to him.

"Hmm." Toby tried to push him off her. It wasn't working. "Speaking personally, right now I'd have to disagree."

Tybalt made a sad mewling noise as she finally extracted herself. It was so pathetic that she found herself feeling guilty, even as she rolled her eyes. 

"I'm going to get you a drink," she told him. "You need to make sure you've got enough fluids."

He looked up at her pleadingly, widening his eyes pathetically. "I'd rather have you stay."

"Well, it's a good thing one of us is in this relationship can think like an adult," Toby retorted, and had to turn away quickly before she could fall for his blatant manipulation.

"I was born _centuries_ before you," she heard him muttering as she retreated purposefully to the kitchen. 

Once again she was thankful that Jazz and May also lived in the house. By poking in cupboards while the coffee maker and the kettle were both going she found a blister pack of cold and flu tylenol, as well as an improbably large selection of teas. "Do you like fruit tea?" she called.

An ambiguous grunt was her only answer. Toby shrugged, and picked rosehip-and-blackcurrant on the basis of the box's promise that it was good for the immune system. It might even taste palatable, although she seriously doubted it.

Tybalt was shifting restlessly on the couch when she returned. He went to cat-shape, and then back to human. Then back to cat, burrowing against a cushion.

"Stop doing that and drink your tea," Toby said. "I'm not feeding tylenol to a cat."

Tybalt changed back again, and pushed himself up onto his elbows, eyeing Toby dolefully. "I feel _awful_."

"I know," Toby said, sympathetically. She kicked a paperback to with arm's reach of the couch and sat down, handing Tybalt his mug and guiding him to lean his head against her lap. She stroked his hair. "At least you've got your girlfriend to look after you."

"When she isn't mocking me," Tybalt said.

"Hey, I made you tea!"

Tybalt huffed, but he also rubbed his head affectionately against Toby's thigh with his eyes closed. He got more cat-like when he was very tired, and apparently also when he was sick. She curled her fingers into his hair, and he purred.

"Do you want to go up to bed?" Toby asked, after a while. It was peaceful where they were, but she wasn't sure how comfortable Tybalt was slumped across the couch and her.

Tybalt shook his head. He was sipping his tea slowly and drowsily. "Fine here."

"Hmm." She eyed him sceptically. "Is that because you'd _actually_ prefer to be here, or because you don't want to move?"

"Both," he mumbled, and tipped sideways to nuzzle against Toby again.

"You _do_ know you're acting like a kitten," Toby said.

Tybalt made an annoyed huffing sound, and burrowed closer. 

Toby rolled her eyes and rescued the book from the floor. "Well, if you're going to be like that…" She reassessed Tybalt's drooping posture and pulled the mug from his fingers before he could drop it and the remainder of the contents all over the carpet. Or the pile of magazines hiding most of the carpet, rather. He mewed a sleepy protest which Toby ignored.

It was getting on towards morning when the front door banged cheerfully against the frame. "Toby?" May called.

Toby waited, sure that May would come looking for her whether she replied or not. Sure enough, a face framed by purple hair appeared around the living room door. "Oh, there you are. I'm returning your squire. What's up with Tybalt?"

"He's sleeping off the flu," Toby said. 

May gave him a dubious look. "He'd better not be contagious."

"May, you're impervious to being _killed_ in alarming and gruesome ways. I don't think some little flu germs stand a chance against you."

May shrugged, still looking doubtful. "If I get sick I'm blaming you."

"That's hardly fair," Toby protested. "They're not even my germs."

Quentin finally appeared, elbowing his way past May's blockade of the doorway. "Tybalt's sick?" he asked, alarmed.

"Don't worry, it's not fatal," Toby assured him.

Tybalt didn't open his eyes, but he huffed indignantly. "Says you," he muttered.

"I _do_ say," Toby informed the room at large. "And you might not be asleep, but my legs are and also I need the bathroom. Can you get off me, please?"

Tybalt groaned pitifully, and changed into a cat.

Toby looked at him bemusedly. "That's one solution, I suppose," she said, scooping him off her and onto the cushions. She stretched out her legs, rubbing the cramped muscles. 

"This is thrilling, but I want food," May said. "I hope he hasn't contaminated the kitchen."

Quentin lingered, looking distinctly amused. Toby suspected he was filing away the details to recount to Raj later, which seemed like a good plan to her. "Is he really all right?" he asked.

"He will be," Toby said, automatically beginning to stroke Tybalt's back. "Dear, if you'll stay as a cat I'll carry you up to bed."

Tybalt nuzzled her hand, which she took as agreement. "Get May to feed you," she told Quentin, and he grinned. "I'll probably come down for something in a bit."

Tybalt was heavy and loose in her arms as she carried him upstairs. In her bedroom she kicked clothes out of the way across the floor to give her a safe path to the bed, and pulled back the covers one-handed before setting Tybalt down on the sheets. He wriggled, and turned back to a man again, although the overly-dramatic air of suffering radiating from him remained unchanged.

"Are you sleeping like that, then?" Toby asked, after he showed no sign of moving.

Tybalt cracked an eye open. "I'm too tired," he mumbled. "Perhaps you could help me…"

"Oh, for Oberon's sake," Toby said, exasperated. She knew perfectly well when she was being played, but she was also amused enough to go along with it. She knelt on the bed next to him and undid the row of buttons on his shirt, peeling back the fabric as she went. Tybalt gave a contented sigh as she ran her fingers along his chest, and then he reached up to her own shirt.

She felt his forehead again. "You can't possibly be feeling well enough."

"Maybe not," Tybalt said, drowsiness taking the edge off his feline smile, "but you might start fearing for my life if I stopped appreciating you in undress."

"Flatterer," Toby said, smiling. 

"Is it working?" he asked, hopefully.

"Hmm. Maybe." She unbuttoned his jeans, and helped him wriggle out of his clothes. Then she leaned back before he could try to remove hers in earnest. "First I'm going to get you some water, and you're going to drink it all. After that we'll see."

Tybalt grumbled, and rolled over to bury himself in a pillow. Toby shook her head fondly and pulled the duvet over him.

She was just heading to the door when there was a tentative knocking from the other side. "I'm not coming in unless you're dressed," Quentin called.

"I promise you're not risking eye damage," Toby said, opening it. Quentin was bearing a tray with two cans of ginger ale, a pack of tylenol, and a wrapped sandwich. "Also, you're the best squire ever. Have I told you that?"

"Not often enough," Quentin said. "Although this was May's idea. She wasn't sure if you'd want to come back down."

"You're here and May's not, so you might as well steal the credit." Toby glanced back over her shoulder. The duvet-covered lump that was Tybalt hadn't stirred. "Thanks."

"I think she might be trying to keep his germs contained," Quentin said.

Toby rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I got that not-very-subtle subtext. I never knew Fetches were so germaphobic. You should probably go before she decides not to let you back downstairs."

Tybalt looked like he was already asleep. Feeling somewhat heartless, Toby poked him until he lifted his head and squinted blearily at her. "What?"

She pushed a can of ginger ale at him. "Drink this and I'll let you go back to sleep. We had a deal, remember?"

Tybalt groaned. But he eventually got the liquid inside him, prodded by Toby when he showed signs of stopping. "Cruel mistress," he muttered.

"Yes, very cruel, making sure my deathly ill boyfriend stays hydrated," Toby said. She put down the remainder of the second can, which she had claimed for myself. "And now I'm getting into bed with my deathly ill boyfriend. I'm terrible."

"Very," Tybalt mumbled, happily attempting to help divest her of her clothing. Half-asleep and clumsy, he was more of a hindrance, but a very well-meaning one. He snuggled against her skin as soon as it became available.

Toby could just about reach to turn the lights out. It was still early to go to bed, but she'd been meaning to catch up on her sleep. It seemed as good an opportunity as any. Better, because having a faintly purring King of Cats nestled as close against her as he could get was one of the most restful things she could imagine. (That seemed a sure sign of how deeply weird her life was.)

"You're adorable when you're sick, you know," she told him.

Tybalt grumbled something completely unintelligible into her chest.

Toby laughed softly. "Yeah, I love you too."


End file.
